This invention is concerned with blends of polyketone polymers and amorphous polyamide polymers.
Amorphous polyamides, such as Zytel.sup..TM. 330 available from E. I. DuPont de Nemours Co., Inc., are a class of materials with significantly lower stiffness and heat resistance than semicrystalline or crystalline nylon, such as nylon 6 or nylon 6,6. Amorphous polyamides, also known as amorphous nylons include nylon copolymers whose monomers include nylon 6, nylon 6,6, and nylon 6,10 starting materials as well as terephthalic acid and alkyl substituted diamines. Aromatic polyamides may be included in this class of materials.
Other usable nylons may include those prepared from dodecanedioic acid and bis-para-aminocyclohexyl methane.
By physically blending polymers of polyketone with amorphous polyamides a high performance alloy of good impact strength with an increase in modulus, breaking strength, and lower cost is obtained.
The general class of polyketone polymers of carbon monoxide and one or more ethylenically unsaturated hydrocarbons has been known for some years. Brubaker, U.S. 2,495,286, produced such polymers of relatively low carbon monoxide content in the presence of free radical initiators such as benzoyl peroxide. British Patent 1,081,304 produced such polymers of higher carbon monoxide content in the presence of alkylphosphine complexes of palladium as catalyst. Nozaki extended the process to produce linear alternating polymers in the presence of arylphosphine complexes of palladium. See, for example, U.S. 3,694,412.
More recently, the class of linear alternating polymers of carbon monoxide and unsaturated hydrocarbons now known as polyketones, has become of greater interest, in part because of improved methods of production.
These polymers, often referred to as polyketone or polyketone polymers have been shown to be of the repeating formula ----CO--(A)---- where A is the moiety of an ethylenically unsaturated hydrocarbon polymerized through the ethylenic unsaturation. For example, when the ethylenically unsaturated hydrocarbon is ethylene, the polymer will be represented by the repeating formula ----CO----(CH.sub.2 CH.sub.2)----.
The general process for preparing polyketones, is illustrated by a number of European Patent Applications including European Patent Application No. 0121965 directed towards a preparation of polyketones to obtain a high yield, wherein a mixture of carbon monoxide and alkenically unsaturated hydrocarbon is polymerized in the presence of Group VIII metal catalyst (such as palladium, cobalt or nickel) the anion of a strong non-hydrohalogenic acid having a pKa below 2, and a bidentate ligand of phosphorous, arsenic or antimony.
Polyketones prepared with the novel catalyst, result in a novel, linear alternating polyketone polymer which has not been blended with amorphous polyamides to form novel and useful blends having increased impact resistance at low temperatures compared to the polyketone alone as well as increases strength and stiffness.